Introduction

Bangladesh is the treasure trove of bounteous nature.The country is situated in South Asia, surrounded by India on east,west and north side and Bay of Bengal on the south. The country has got an area of 144,000 sq km. The main cities of Bangladesh are the Capital Dhaka,financial capital Chittagong,Rajshahi,Khulna,Barisal and Sylhet. The country is classed as developing country.

Although the country is known to the rest of the world as a poverty striken and a notorious flood zone, the natural beauty of the country is incomparable to any other country of the world. Whilst the tourism of the country has not been developed because of the poor infastructure,unskilled management and the ever volatile political situation, the country offers the longest sea beach on the planet which is 100 approx. mile long. This can be found in Cox's Bazar,Chittagong.

History

There has long been advanced civilization in what is now Bangladesh, once the eastern part of a greater region called Bengal. There is recent evidence of civilizations dating back to 500 BC, and there are even claims of social structures from around 1000 BC. One of the earliest historical references to be found to date is the mention of a land named Gangaridai by the Greeks around 100BC. The word is speculated to have come from Gangahrd (Land with the Ganges in its heart) and believed to be referring to an area in Bangladesh. However, more concrete proof of a political entity in Bengal starts with Shashanka in 7th century A.D. This was followed by (though not immediately) the Pala dynasty and the Sen dynasty. The Pala dynasty was Buddhist while both Shashanka and the Sens were Hindus. Bengal became Islamic starting in the 13th century and developed into a wealthy centre of trade and industry under the Mughal Empire during the 16th century. European traders had arrived in the late 15th century and eventually the British East India Company controlled the region by the late 18th century, from which the British extended their rule over all of India. When Indian independence was achieved in 1947, political motivations caused it to be divided into the Islamic state of Pakistan and a secular India. The Partition of India saw Bengal divided between the two new countries: a Muslim-dominated eastern part called East Bengal corresponding to what is now Bangladesh, and a western part, the Indian state of West Bengal. The abolition of the Jamidari system (which divided the society into lords, owners of property, and commoners, users of property) in East Bengal (1950) was a major landmark in Bangladesh's movement to a "people's state". The Language Movement of February, 1952 established the rights of the Bengali community to speak in their own language, an event commomorated now as the International Mother Language Day. In 1955, the government of Pakistan changed the name of the province from East Bengal to East Pakistan. East Pakistan was dominated and neglected by West Pakistan, which comprised the rest of Pakistan (West Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan, and the Northwest Frontier Province). Despite the fact that East Pakistan earned the larger share of national income, especially through the export of Jute, most of the development was done in West Pakistan. The Pakistan Army was also mostly dominated by officers from West Pakistan. The tensions peaked in 1971, following an open, non-democratic denial by Pakistani president Yahya Khan, a military ruler, of election results that gave the Awami League an overwhelming majority in the parliament (167 out of 169 seats allocated for East Pakistan). Under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, also known as Bôngobondhu (Friend of Bengal), Bangladesh started its struggle for independence. The official onset followed one of the bloodiest genocides of recent times carried out by the Pakistan army on Bengali civilians on 25 March 1971. Virtually the entire Bengali intelligentsia was eliminated. Owing to West Pakistan's effort to rid the country of foreign journalists, accurate numbers are difficult to get, but some estimates claim 50,000 deaths in the first three days of the so-called 'Operation Searchlight' of the Pakistan Army. More than ten million Bengalis fled to neighbouring India, which backed the liberation war, with support from the Soviet Union. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was arrested by the Pakistani Government. Before his arrest, Rahman made a formal and official declaration of Independence on 26 March. Hence 26 March is considered the Independence Day of Bangladesh. On 27 March Ziaur Rahman, an army major then, and President of Bangladesh much later, made the announcement of the declaration of Independence of Bangladesh on behalf of Sheikh Mujib, using a makeshift radio transmitter from Kalurghat near Chittagong city. With help of Bengali officers in the army, support of civilians and military/humanitarian aid from India, Bangladesh quickly formed a regular army as well as a guerilla force known as Mukti Bahini (Freedom Fighters). Besides attacks on the Pakistani army, the Mukti Bahini provided local intelligence and guidance of immense value to the allied force of Bangladesh Army and Indian Army which attacked the occupying West Pakistani army of 80,000 in early December 1971. Within two weeks of the Indian invasion, on 16 December 1971, the Lieutenant-General A. A. K. Niazi of the Pakistan army formally surrendered to Lt.Gen. Jagjit Singh Aurora, the head of the Indian army's Eastern Command. India took 93,000 prisoners of war who were held in camps in India. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who had been incarcerated in West Pakistan since March, returned triumphantly as the first Prime Minister of the new nation. India withdrew its troops from Bangladesh within three months of the war. After the war, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman became the Prime Minister and later the President of Bangladesh. He along with most of his family were massacred by a group of disgruntled Army officers on 15 August 1975. Following his death, (Major General) Khaled Mosharraf led a military coup on 3 November 1975. Khaled Mosharraf was killed in a counter coup on 7 November 1975 in the Dhaka cantonment culminating in General Ziaur Rahman gaining power and later gained the Presidency. But in 1981, he was killed in yet another coup, in Chittagong. In 1982 General Hossain Mohammad Ershad staged a bloodless coup and deposed the president Abdus Sattar, a former Supreme Court Justice. He installed another supreme court justice Ahsan Uddin Chowdhury as President while keeping all the power with him in capacity of Chief Martial Law Administrator. Ershad later declared himself President and started a new political party named Janadal, which he later renamed as Jatiya Party. The rule of Ershad continued until 1990. A popular uprising forced Ershad to resign and give way to a parliamentary democracy. Since then, Bangladesh has been ruled by three democratically elected governments.

Politics

The President, while head of state, holds a largely ceremonial post, with real power held by the Prime Minister, who is head of government. The president is elected by the legislature every five years and his normally limited powers are substantially expanded during the tenure of a caretaker government, mainly in controlling the transition to a new government. The prime minister is appointed by the president and must be a member of parliament (MP) who the president feels commands the confidence of the majority of other MPs. The cabinet is composed of ministers selected by the prime minister and appointed by the president. The unicameral Bangladeshi parliament is the House of the Nation or Jatiya Sangsad, whose 300 members are elected by popular vote from single territorial constituencies for five-year terms of office. The highest judiciary body is the Supreme Court, of which the chief justices and other judges are appointed by the president. Khaleda Zia is currently the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. The politics of Bangladesh is dominated by two major parties, Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Awami League. Other major political parties include Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh and Jatiya Party.

Geography

Bangladesh consists mostly of a low-lying river delta located on the Indian subcontinent with a largely marshy jungle coastline on the Bay of Bengal known as the Sundarbans, home to the (Royal) Bengal Tiger and one of the largest mangrove forests in the world. Bangladesh is situated in the geographic region named The Ganges Delta (also known as the Ganges-Brahmaputra River Delta). This delta is the largest in the world. Having densely vegetated lands, Bangladesh is often called the Green Delta. The densely populated delta is formed by the confluence of the Ganges (local name Padma or Pôdda), Brahmaputra (Jomuna), and Meghna rivers and their tributaries as they flow down from the Himalaya, creating the largest riverine delta in the world. Bangladesh's alluvial soil is highly fertile but vulnerable to both flood and drought. Hills rise above the plain only in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (highest point: the Keokradong at 1230 m) in the far southeast and the Sylhet division in the northeast. Straddling the Tropic of Cancer, the Bangladeshi climate is tropical with a mild winter from October to March, a hot, humid summer from March to June, and a humid, warm rainy monsoon from June to October. Natural calamities, such as floods, tropical cyclones, tornadoes, and tidal bores affect the country almost every year, combined with the effects of deforestation, soil degradation and erosion. Dhaka is the country's capital and largest city. Other major cities include Chittagong, Rajshahi, and Khulna. Cox's Bazar, South of the city of Chittagong, has a sea beach that stretches uninterrupted over 120 km; it is frequently quoted as the World's longest natural sea beach.

Administrative Divisions

Bangladesh is subdivided into six administrative divisions, all named after their respective divisional headquarters:
Barisal, Chittagong, Dhaka, Khulna, Rajshahi and Sylhet.
The next level of administrative unit is a district or Zila (in Bangla). There are 64 districts in Bangladesh. Each district is further subdivided into Thana (Police stations) or Upazila (sub-districts). Each police station, except for those in metropolitan areas, is divided into several unions. The unions consist of many villages. In the metropolitan areas, the unit is a ward, which consists of several mahalla or areas.
Barisal Division: Barguna , Barisal , Bhola , Jhalkathi , Patuakhali and Pirojpur.
Chittagong Division: Bandarban, Brahmanbaria, Chandpur, Chittagong, Comilla, Cox's Bazar, Feni, Khagrachari, Lakshmipur, Noakhali and Rangamati.
Dhaka Division: Dhaka, Faridpur, Gazipur, Gopalganj, Jamalpur, Kishoreganj, Madaripur, Manikganj, Munshiganj, Mymensingh, Narayanganj, Narsingdi, Netrakona, Rajbari, Shariatpur, Sherpur and Tangail.
Khulna Division: Bagerhat, Chuadanga, Jessore, Jhenaidah, Khulna, Kushtia, Magura, Meherpur, Narail and Satkhira.
Rajshahi Division: Bogra, Dinajpur, Gaibandha, Jaipurhat, Kurigram, Lalmonirhat, Naogaon, Natore, Nawabganj, Nilphamari, Pabna, Panchagarh, Rajshahi, Rangpur, Sirajganj and Thakurgaon.
Sylhet Division: Habiganj, Moulvibazar, Sunamganj and Sylhet.

Economy

Despite sustained domestic and international efforts to improve economic and demographic prospects, Bangladesh remains an underdeveloped and overpopulated nation. The per capita income in 2004 was a low US$440 (GDP - per capita purchasing power parity $2100), and many other economic indicators were less than impressive. Yet, as the World Bank notes in its July 2005 Country Brief, the country has made impressive progress in human development by focusing on increasing literacy, achieving gender parity in schooling, and reducing population growth. Jute was once the economic engine of the country. Its share of the world export market peaked in the late 1940s at 80% and even in the early 1970s accounted for 70% of its export earnings. However, polypropylene products began to substitute jute products worldwide and the jute industry started to slow down. Bangladesh grows significant quantities of rice, tea and mustard. Although two-thirds of Bangladeshis are farmers, more than three quarters of Bangladesh's export earnings come from the garment industry, which began attracting foreign investors in the 1980s due to cheap labour and low conversion cost. In 2002, the industry exported US$5 billion worth of products. The industry now employs more than 3 million workers, 90% of whom are women. A large part of foreign currency earnings also comes from the remittances sent by expatriates living in other countries. Obstacles to growth include frequent cyclones and floods, inefficient state-owned enterprises, mismanaged port facilities, a growth in the labour force that has outpaced jobs, inefficient use of energy resources (such as natural gas), insufficient power supplies, slow implementation of economic reforms, political infighting and corruption. According to the World Bank's July 2005 Country Brief: "Among Bangladesh's most significant obstacles to growth are poor governance and weak public institutions." Despite the hurdles, since 1990, the country has achieved an average annual growth rate of 5% according to the World Bank. The middle class and the consumer industry have seen some growth. In December 2005, four years after its report on the emerging "BRIC" economies (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), Goldman Sachs named Bangladesh one of the "Next Eleven", along with Egypt, Indonesia and several other countries. Bangladesh has seen a sharp increase in foreign direct investment. A number of multinational corporations, including Unocal and Tata, have made significant investments, with the natural gas sector a priority. In December 2005, the Central Bank of Bangladesh projected GDP growth around 6.5%. One significant contributor to the development of the economy has been the widespread propagation of microcredit by Muhammad Yunus through the Grameen Bank. By the late 1990s, Grameen Bank had 2.3 million members, with a further 2.5 million members of other similar organizations.

Demographics

Apart from very small countries such as Singapore and Bahrain, Bangladesh is the most densely populated country in the world. The nation, at 982 persons per km², has often been compared to Indonesia's Java. Bangladesh is ethnically homogenous, with Bengalis comprising 98% of the population, the rest belonging to the tribal people. The vast majority speak Bangla or Bengali. Bengali, an Indo-Aryan language, is written in the Bengali script. It is the official language, though English is accepted in official tasks and in (higher) education. A small number of people, mostly non-Bengali Muslims from regions of India such as Bihar speak Urdu. A substantial number of non-Bengali tribal groups inhabit the Chittagong Hill Tracts in the southeast and the Northern regions Bangladesh, including parts of the districts of Mymensingh, Sylhet, Rangpur. Almost all non-Bengali Bangladeshis speak Bangla as a second language. Most Bangladeshis (about 88%) are Muslims, but Hindus constitute a sizable (10%) minority. There are also a small number of Buddhists, Christians, and Animists. Bangladesh has a high population growth rate. In the mid-eighties, the government began promoting birth control to slow population growth, but with limited success. However, the Government has gained considerable success in preventing the spread of many childhood diseases, through an effective nationwide immunisation policy. Many are landless or forced to inhabit hazardous floodplains, with the consequence of rampant water-borne disease. In an effort to stem the spread of pathogens like cholera and dysentery, international organizations began to promote well-drilling throughout the nation. Several years after widespread implementation of the programme, over a quarter of the population exhibited symptoms of arsenic poisoning. High levels of naturally occurring arsenic in the water table of certain regions has not been accounted for. The effects of arsenic-tainted water still remain a problem.

Culture

A new state for an old nation, Bangladesh has a culture that encompasses elements both old and new. The Bangla language boasts a rich literary heritage, which Bangladesh shares with West Bengal and Assam province of India. The first literary text in Bangla is the eighth century Charyapada. Bangla literature in the medieval age was often either religious (e.g. Chandidas), or adaptations from other languages (e.g. Alaol). Bangla literature matured in the nineteenth century. Its greatest icons are poets Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam. Bangladesh also has a long tradition in folk literature, evidenced by Maimansingha gitika, Thakurmar Jhuli or stories related to Gopal Bhar. The musical tradition of Bangladesh is lyrics-based (Baniprodhan), with minimal instrumental accompaniment. The Baul tradition is a unique heritage of Bangla folk music, and there are numerous other musical traditions in Bangladesh, which vary from one region to the other. Gambhira, Bhatiali, Bhawaiya are a few of the better-known musical forms. Folk music of Bengal is often accompanied by the ektara, an instrument with only one string. Other instruments include the dotara, dhol, flute, and tabla. Bangladesh also has an active heritage in North Indian classical music. Similarly, Bangladeshi dance forms draw from folk traditions, especially those of the tribal groups, as well as the broader Indian dance tradition. Bangladesh produces about 80 films a year. Mainstream Hindi films are also quite popular, as are films from Kolkata, which has its own thriving Bengali-language movie industry. Around 200 dailies are published in Bangladesh, along with more than 1800 periodicals. However, regular readership is low, nearly about 15% of the population. Bangladeshis listen to a variety of local and national radio programmes, as well as Bangla services from BBC and VOA. There is a state-controlled television channel, but in the last few years, privately owned channels have grown considerably. The culinary tradition of Bangladesh has close relations to Indian and Middle Eastern cuisine as well as having many unique traits. Rice and fish are traditional favourites; leading to a common saying that "fish and rice make a Bengali" (machhe bhate bangali). Meat Consumption has increased with higher production in recent years. Bangladeshis make distinctive sweetmeats from milk products; some common ones are Rashogolla, Chomchom and Kalojaam. Sari is by far the most widely worn dress by Bangladeshi women. However, Salwar kameez is also quite popular, and in urban areas some women wear western attire. Among men, European dressing has greater acceptance. Men also use the kurta-pajama combination, often on religious occasions. The lungi, a kind of wraparound, is widely worn in rural areas. The two Eids, Eid ul-Fitr and Eid ul-Adha are the largest festivals in the Islamic calendar. The day before each Eid in called Chand Raat (The night of the moon), and is often marked by firecrackers. Other Muslim holidays are also observed. Major Hindu festivals are Durga Puja and Saraswati Puja. Buddha Purnima, which marks the birth of Gautama Buddha, is one of the most important Buddhist festivals while Christmas, called Boro din (Great day) in Bangla is celebrated by the minority Christian population. The most important secular festival is Nobobarsha or New year, the beginning of the Bengali calendar. Other festivities include Nobanno, Poush parbon (festival of Poush) and observance of national days like Shahid dibosh. Cricket is one of the most popular sports in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh cricket team was granted test cricket status and joined the elite league of national teams permitted by the International Cricket Council to play test matches in 2000. Other popular sports include football (soccer), field hockey, tennis, badminton, handball, kabadi, volleyball, chess, and carom. Kabadi, a 7-a-side team-sport played without a ball or any other equipment, is the national sport of Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Sports Control Board regulates 29 different sporting federations.

Education

Education in Bangladesh is highly subsidized by the Government, which operates many schools and colleges in the primary, secondary and higher secondary level as well as many public universities. The whole country is divided into seven education boards (Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Jessore, Barishal, Sylhet and Comilla Education Boards) which oversee education from the primary to the higher secondary level, and conduct the primary and junior scholarship examinations, the Secondary School Certificate examination, and the Higher Secondary Certificate examination. The Government also provides a large portion of the salaries of the teachers in non-government schools. To promote literacy among women, education is free upto the higher secondary level for female students. There is also a Government-funded program which gives incentives like stipends and food for continuing education in the secondary level. There are 22 Public Universities in Bangladesh. Among them five provide engineering education and the rest are general universities.